[Tsuwabuki]

My tone is scholastic and neutral, just as it would be in any philosophical discussion between philosophers I would have via journals, panels, or online forums. There is no need to read any emotional color into my posts. If there should come a time when I have an emotional response to offer, I will say so, "Such and such upsets me, such and such angers me" etc. There will be an explicit statement of emotional content.

Originally Posted by Columbine

Well, then I'm sorry for getting carried away. Admittedly you didn't quote my post, but then again, it's somewhat impossible to tell from your post that you ARE being hypothetical, and apologies if I seem slow, but it still doesn't read that way on the first look, even with your explanation. Also what's 'proverbial' about it- did you mean 'irony'?. Please be clearer in future. Your words are tagged under YOUR name, not with a sock puppet marked " voice of general public". A small intro wouldn't have gone amiss.

You're getting carried away now. I never accused you of being slow. I don't see why you are implying I did. Furthermore I have often said today that in this issue I have no opinion (in all honestly I do, but that opinion is, in fact, a third opinion), and that my goal is merely to make sure that certain epistemic standards are met.

Proverbial in that I does not represent me, but is rather a metaphor for the fact that "I, the public" deserve for those epistemic standards to be met. In the same way proverbial "you" does not represent the actual person that you happen to be, but rather a metaphorical you encompassing all individuals covered by a certain set of conditions currently in discussion. I always endeavor to be as precise as possible, I need not be told to do so, as I will adjust as it becomes clear to me that I have been misunderstood.

I most certainly did not mean "irony" and have no idea how you would come to suggest that as an alternative. I cannot follow your logic as how it would even be considered remotely relevant.

The earlier posts, I hoped, offered the context that would amount to your "small intro."

But yes, I think there is a lot of unfounded opinion that comes up when these sorts of issues get grist to the mill. I mentioned Miyazaki earlier, the serial killer. His capture led to the first crackdown on pornography and some general regulations put in effect for the first time. Unfortunately it also lead to witch-hunting of Otaku. At the end of the day though, this issue is being decided in Japan. We don't know that the relevant information isn't being provided to the relevant people, or by 'agent' did you mean the government to the public. Well, it is, mostly. You just have to be able to search government websites, but suicide statistics are publicly available, and i'm sure other crime data is as well.

By agent I meant any organisation making policy changes to the public. In this case the regulatory agency for this industry.

Also, I live in Japan. I pay taxes in Japan. I am politically active in Japan. I cannot vote, as I am not a citizen, but that does not mean I am not part of the public.

I do agree through that there are some bad failures in the system. Particularly concerning mental health. The Japanese mental health system is slowly improving, and it does have the most productive psychological association in asia, however research and general practice seem to be worlds apart, the latter being years behind the former.

Indeed, it is quite horrid.

Anyway, we are digressing. My original argument was that, as a niche market, these games seem to appeal to only a very specific characters, eg individuals who find descriptions of rape a turn on. Those characteristics then have a certain disquieting degree of overlap with characteristics of rapists, ie, rapists also find descriptions of rape a turn on. So whilst i'm not saying that every rape game player is therefore a rapist or indeed will become them, i'm saying in the rape game player population there is a strong probability that the percentage of players who are also rapists, or will also become rapist is much much higher than for players of other commercial games.

And until a positive, cause and effect correlation is found between non-rapists becoming rapists and playing these games, I see only one more step towards fascism. A tiny step. An very, very, very tiny step, but that's where it starts. If such a correlation exists, that's another issue entirely.

I didn't use the word pederast as that is specifically men and young boys where as pedophilia doesn't imply gender for either perp or victim, that and these games tend to revolve around men victimizing women. I assume under most general statistics pederasty is simply incorporated into the pedophile data, nonetheless, more girls than boys get sexually abused.

Actually, in this case, I meant pederasty as the ACT of, regardless of gender/sex of the participants. While typically associated with men and young boys, here I wanted to clarify that one who is a pedophile need not ever act out their desires.

Furthermore, calling someone who molests a child a pedophile may, in fact, be incorrect. If the victim is a victim of convenience, which does compromise a sizable portion of the victim statistics, then the correlation between desire and act becomes much fuzzier. Sex offender statistics do not (often) tell us why or how a victim was chosen, when it most certainly does matter. Or even if the victim was a victim. A recent case in Georgia shows what happens when a male teen is convicted of being a sex offender for having consensual sex with a female teen.

We must disassociate thoughts with actions, or that leads back to what I mentioned in the post above: the Mental Health Police.